Cellular Automata in Complex Matter
Dominique Désérable
Pascal Dupont
Mustapha Hellou
Siham Kamali-Bernard
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées
Laboratoire de Génie Civil & Génie Mécanique
20 Avenue des Buttes de Coësmes, 35043 Rennes, France
Dominique.Deserable@insa-rennes.fr
INSA de Rennes: https://www.insa-rennes.fr
Abstract
Complex matter may take various forms from granular matter, soft matter, fluid-fluid, or solid-fluid mixtures to compact heterogeneous material. Cellular automata models make a suitable and powerful tool for catching the influence of the microscopic scale in the macroscopic behavior of these complex systems. Rather than a survey, this paper attempts to bring out the main concepts underlying these models. A taxonomy is presented with four general types proposed: sandpile, lattice-gas, lattice-grain, and hybrid models. A discussion follows with general questions; namely, grain-size, synchronization, topology and scalability, and consistency of the models.
